VSLive! Conference Continues Welcome Trend
Back in June I blogged about the Microsoft Tech Ed North America 2010 Conference in New Orleans, and the fact that attendance figures at the show
went well beyond Microsoft's expectations. I regarded it as a very welcome sign for the industry. In that post I also wondered if more developers might make the trip up to Redmond, Washington, for the
VSLive! Conference, which is closing up today.
It seems that the answer to that question was, yes. Before introducing the Day 1 keynote speaker, Redmond Media Group President Henry Allain announced to the audience that this week's VSLive! event had, in fact, sold out. While that's welcome news for my parent company, 1105 Media, which ran the event, it's also great news for anyone involved in software development. It seems that a lot of companies are finding the dollars in their budgets to advance the skill sets of their developers.
The decision to locate VSLive! (this week renamed Visual Studio Live!) on the Microsoft campus may have been a factor. Many attendees I spoke to were enthusiastic about the venue.
"Being on campus adds some magic to the whole experience," said Steve Peach, owner of Peach Business Software, who traveled all the way from Sydney, Australia. "Walking around the campus I could feel the history of the last 30 years, and enjoyed looking at the tiles with the ship dates of each product -- it was a walk through my programming lifetime."
Walter Kimrey, information technology manager for software development at Delta Community Credit Union in Atlanta, called the venue "top notch" and described Microsoft as a gracious host. "It seems that the decision to have the conference at the Microsoft campus is a natural one, and I was surprised to hear this is the first time the conference has been held here," Kimrey said.
Could it be that the full houses at Tech Ed and VSLive! are a harbinger of better things to come in the development space? Tell me what you think. Are we seeing a thaw in software development's nuclear winter?
Posted by Michael Desmond on 08/06/2010 at 1:15 PM